Topic: Dec.2003 Interview with Hashimoto and Umezaki

[TheouAegis]

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/12/17/the-story-of-the-konami-code-and-early-days-of-nes-development/

A couple of the old-timers at Konami discussed development of old games, why Konami had routinely been praised for its game music, how the Konami Code came about, and the evolution of the video game developer companies. I know it's an old article, but some people probably haven't seen it.


Edit: Was transcribed in 2003, but I guess it was translated in 2011. So I changed the title.

[X]

That was a neat read! 

[TheouAegis]

It also explains to me why Konami's programming was the way it was in the NES days. I feel Konami's programmers had a very unique style of programming. You can tell they borrowed perhaps from Nintendo R&D, or maybe it Nintendo EAD had staff from Konami... But the whole idea that the NES programmers at Konami had no programming experience and were learning as they went -- that's damned impressive. They all learned how to program under the tutelage of one person (not sure who that was), so it makes sense to me now why many of their games had very similar programming elements in them. Getsu Fuuma, TMNT, Castlevania, and probably even Goonies I/II all had their own flavor (coding-wise), but each of them were still vaguely reminiscent of the other Konami games. You can decode almost any early Konami game and feel almost at home inside each game's code. But if you opened a game like Ninja Gaiden, Whomp'Em, or -- may God have mercy on your soul -- anything by Capcom, you'll feel like Sarah in Labyrinth. I really do feel like Konami's game's codes have a homely charm to them 99.99% of gamers will never appreciate.